I have only had my petrol VRS a week now and today I noticed a strange ticking sound from the engine. I have looked through previous posts on this subject and it seems to be normal. It does it cold and when hot. You notice it more on tickover, but you can still hear it when you hold the revs up on the engine. Strange thing is, it might tick for a minute and then stop for a few seconds or so, then come back again. That says to me nothing broken, but something working that is just noisy. I guess I am just after some reassurance that this is normal.     

Tsi engine I'm assuming? If so yes mine does the exact same

Yes TSI engine. Thank's for the reply, strange sound but if it's normal, I will ignore it.

I think I read somewhere its something to do with a high pressure pump?

I have it on my TSI too.

Evac purge valve is often the source of a loud ticking sound

Sounds like its normal to me.

Mine makes the ticking noise from the front of the engine; it comes from a small plastic component (sorry don't have a photo to hand).

I noticed it when the car was about 15k old; it made the noise intermittently thereafter.

It now has a new engine (after oil starvation problem on the original engine - explanation is in the big "TSI engine failures" thread), which runs very quietly; but still makes the same intermittent ticking noise.

So I'm confident it is a normal noise (but different from every other car I've ever owned...).